Classics on display at two theaters

Valentine's Day may be over but two different types of love stories hit the big screen tonight when Friends of the Fox shows "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at Stockton's Bob Hope Theatre and Tracy's Grand Theatre continues its Cinematic Treasures with "The African Queen." Both films begin at 7 p.m.

Valentine's Day may be over but two different types of love stories hit the big screen tonight when Friends of the Fox shows "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at Stockton's Bob Hope Theatre and Tracy's Grand Theatre continues its Cinematic Treasures with "The African Queen." Both films begin at 7 p.m.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," released in 1958, is the fifth Tennessee Williams play turned into a film and includes his characteristic Southern setting - this time Mississippi - and frail characters.

It stars Burl Ives as "Big Daddy," a successful businessman dying of cancer whose family gathers for his 65th birthday. Unaware of the severity of his illness, Big Daddy charges on as he always has, running the lives of his grown children as he's run his business. In particular need of his heavy hand is the childless marriage of his favorite son, Brick, played by Paul Newman.

Brick is married to the seductive Maggie, a role made famous by Elizabeth Taylor. Maggie is beautiful and desirable, but her inability to seduce the husband she loves makes her frustrated and edgy, like a cat on a hot tin roof.

The alcoholic Brick is riddled with guilt over the suicide of his best friend and finds comfort in a bottle rather than his alluring wife.

The truth about the family relationships are revealed, sometimes painfully, as they work toward reconciliation.

Williams and Newman both voiced disappointment in the film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Film censors of the day prevented any reference to Brick's homosexuality and his love for the best friend, and only mildly examines the sexism so prominent in the story.

Still, the movie was a box office hit and earned Oscar nominations for best picture, best actor (Newman), best actress (Taylor), best director (Richard Brooks), best cinematography, color (William Daniels), and best writing for a screenplay based on material from another medium. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was first staged on Broadway, and continues to appeal to audiences. An all-black cast is performing the play in San Francisco and actress Scarlett Johansson recently opened a revival of the play on Broadway as infamous Maggie.

Tonight's other offering is quite a contrast to the dark themes of Williams' work.

"The African Queen," based on C.S. Forester's 1935 novel and directed by John Huston, stars Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut, who operates the Queen, a cargo boat, in East Africa at the outbreak of World War I. He ends up with missionary Rose Sayer, played by Katharine Hepburn, on board.

After her brother died as a result of the German's invasion of their church in the village of Kundu, Rose hatches a plan to attack a German ship that is blocking British troops on Lake Tanganyika. Charlie agrees to the plan, and as he and Rose wend their way down the Ulonga-Bora River, over waterfalls, through leech-infested waters and facing enemy fire, the gin-drinking Charlie and prim spinster Rose find love.

"The African Queen" is the only film for which Bogart won a best actor Oscar. It was Hepburn's first film in color.

The movie was filmed in Uganda and the Congo, and the experience drove Hepburn to write the whimsical memoir "The Making of 'The African Queen,' or How I Went to Africa with Bogie, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind." Her experiences included suffering severe dysentery, an illness that afflicted a large number of the cast and crew members, and having to run for her life when Huston insisted she join him in one of his beloved hunting excursions and led them into a herd of wild animals.

The hardships aside, Hepburn turned in a performance that endures in this beloved classic that continues to delight audiences. It also began a friendship with Bogart and his wife, Lauren Bacall, that continued throughout their lives. Hepburn and her long-time love, Spencer Tracy, were among the stars who visited the dying Bogart in his final days in 1957, according to a biography written by Bogart's son Stephen. She and Bacall also remained close until Hepburn died in 2003.